It seems like an odd case of sorts, but a San Diego judge has ruled two books in the downtown public library are child porn and not art books, based apparently on the fact that a pedophile copied pictures from the books. Police are investigating the matter on the urging of the San Diego County District Attorney, after that office got a child porn possession conviction on 49-year-old Charles Davis. Davis is facing a potential 85 years to life behind bars at his May 17 sentencing.
Authorities had seized photocopies from the books in question from Davis, who told police he copied from two reference books in the library's arts section so he would not molest children. But San Diego Superior Court Judge William Kennedy decided the photographs showing young girls naked in provocative poses equaled child porn. The books are Graham Ovenden's States of Grace and David Hamilton's Twenty-Five Years As An Artist, both "coffee table-style" works featuring photographs of nude girls but not depicting or suggesting sexual acts.
Neither author is a stranger to censorship controversy. Two years ago, a grand jury in Alabama indicted Barnes and Noble on obscenity charges for selling another Hamilton book, The Age of Innocence. Ovenden was arrested in London seven years ago, with photographs seized by authorities who claimed to have broken up a major pedophilia ring. But Ovenden himself was never charged with a crime, and his materials were returned to him.
Davis's attorneys claimed the books themselves were of artistic merit, but Kennedy refuted those arguments, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. "They are not for art's sake but for sexual purposes," the judge ruled. A library spokesman told the paper they've rebuffed police bids about who has reviewed specific books repeatedly, and law enforcement hasn't yet tried to take them from the library by force.
San Diego City Attorney Casey Gwinn said only that if the material offended the judge, it "most likely" should not be in the public library.
Davis has two child molestation convictions on his record, both of which involved prison terms, as well as a 1998 guilty plea on child porn after he was found taking photographs of unsuspecting teenagers in a park. His attorneys say, however, that the case will likely be appealed.
